


Coping

by Piper_Halliwell1979



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bar Scene, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Dean Comes Out, Drinking to Cope, Grieving Dean, M/M, One Night Stands, Post-Season/Series 12, Sad, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, sex as a coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 11:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12253584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piper_Halliwell1979/pseuds/Piper_Halliwell1979
Summary: Sam and Dean are at a bar the night before they start a new case. Dean is drinking and depressed and decides he needs to blow off some steam. The next morning reveals that Dean and Sam need to have a conversation.





	Coping

Sam and Dean were sitting in the bar, Sam nursing a beer and Dean hitting the harder stuff. Jack was throwing darts with more skill and precision than a week old kid should. It was sparse, maybe six other people. 

 

“Shouldn’t there be more miserable, depressed people here on a Tuesday?” Dean snarled.

 

“Besides you?” Sam shot back. “Dude, you’re grieving.  _ I’m  _ grieving. We still got a job to do.”

 

Dean tossed back the last of his tumbler of booze. “Not much we can do tonight.” Dean motioned for another drink. “I need to blow off some steam. Don’t wait up for me.” He went to the bar to collect his last drink and settle the tab. 

 

Sam finished his beer and grabbed foster...nephew? Cas was his brother and was gonna be Jack’s dad. He was kind of comfortable being uncle Sammy. Dean seemed to have been possessed by the ghost of John Winchester. Sam had already broken up two fights, thrown a severely hungover Dean into a cold shower, and now he was using his favorite self destructive coping mechanism...sex.

 

Besides the waitress there was one other woman in the bar and she seemed to have eyes for the waitress as well. Dean was probably negotiating a three-way. Not like Sam hadn’t witnessed that level of debauchery before.

 

***

 

Sam and Jack were already up and dressed for the day. Jack was to be a college student shadowing the FBI agents for credit. They waited in the Impala for Dean to emerge from his own room. The door opened and a guy dressed in a button down and jeans emerged first. Dean followed behind in his suit with his bag over his shoulder. When he closed the door the button down pressed Dean back into it for a last and lingering kiss.

 

Dean waited with him, laughing and smiling like Sam hadn’t seen since Cas...Cas died. It was probably all a show for the other guy but it was the effort that counted. A cab rolled up and Dean graciously paid, gentleman that he was. He gave the guy a wave and got into the Impala.

 

“Alright, say what you’re gonna say,” Dean said without looking at Sam.

 

“This isn’t the first time you’ve done this.”

 

“Nope.”

 

“So you’re bi? Pan?”

 

“What the hell is pan?” Dean finally turned his head. He still hadn’t started the car.

 

“Pansexual. It’s basically means that you be sexually attracted to, or romantically involved with just about anyone.”

 

Dean seemed to mull it over. “Never been with anyone transgender but I dunno. Maybe. I just always thought I was bi. There weren’t all the extra letters when I was figuring it out. So, I’m out.”

 

Sam just shook his head. “All this time I thought…”

 

“You thought what?”

 

“That the reason you weren’t with... _ him _ was because you were repressed or something.”

 

Dean gripped the steering wheel and twisted his wrists on the leather. “Don’t. Don’t talk about him. And don’t assume you know everything about me. Or him.”

 

Sam opened then closed his mouth. Tears stung at his eyes. Maybe he didn’t know Dean as well as he thought he did. And maybe he was looking at Dean’s grief all wrong. “I’m sorry. You lost a lot more than I thought you did.”

 

Dean relaxed a little. Sam was on the same page without an even more heart-wrenching conversation. He started up his Baby and backed out of his spot. They had a job to get to.

 

Jack, who’d been silent in the back through the whole scene, spoke up in his timid voice. “The paradise I showed him, Castiel, was a future with you by his side.”

 

“Well, that train has sailed, kid.” Dean responded dryly.

 

“Unless you’re soulmates and I saw your heaven.”

 

Dean hadn’t thought of it that way, a promise. He thought it was just another rug ripped out from under him when Cas fell to the ground. Maybe that’s where he was, a private heaven, waiting for Dean to join.

  
“Let’s just focus on the job. ‘Kay?” Dean guided the car down to the sheriff’s department. When they got out, Sam just patted Dean’s back without a word.


End file.
